Surgical and like bandage.



H. w. STOKES;

SURGICAL AN D LIKE BANDAGE.

APPLICATION FILED IAN. I ZI I918.

1,262,281 Patented A r..9, 1918.

JTTOFA EM HENRY W. STOKES, OF PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.

SURGICAL AND LIKE BANDAGE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Apr. 9, 1918.

Application filed January 12, 1918. Seria1 1 \To. 211,629.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HENRY W. STOKES, a Y citizen of the United States, residing at Philadelphia, in the county of Philadelphia and State of Pennsylvania, have invented a certain new and useful Surgical and like Bandage, of which the following is a specification.

The principal object of the present invention is to provide a comparatively inexpensive, soft, light and strong bandage which may be absorbent or water-proof, as desired, and which is possessed of the advantages of textile bandages but is free from their defects and disadvantages.

A bandage embodying the invention consists of one or more plies of crape paper which is soft, pliable and otherwise well adapted for surgical use and which is capable of being readily prepared and rolled, in combination with one or more rows of stitches which impart to the crape paper the tensile strength necessary for a bandage.

The invention will be claimed at the end hereof but will be first described in connection with the embodiment of it chosen for illustration in the accompanying drawings forming part hereof and in which Figure 1, is a perspective view of a bandage embodying features'of the invention.

Fig. 2, is an end view of the bandage drawn to an enlarged scale and somewhat diagrammatic in character, and I Fig. 3, is a diagrammatic end view of a two-ply bandage which can be considered as a modification of the invention.

In the drawings 1, is a strip of crape paper. In the manufacture of crape paper the fibers are heaped, mounted or ridged so that the paper is very soft and pliable. ,For the purpose in hand crape paper may be made without sizing or filling or adulterant and as near sterile and pure as possible. Grape paper made from wood pulp may contain traces of sulfur but for the purpose in hand that is not objectionable as sulfur possesses antiseptic properties. Grape paper may be absorbent and not water-proof although my bandage is not injured or deleteriously afl'ected by any moisture to which it is exposed in its intended use. Grape paper may be water-proof and when incorporated in my bandage the latter will withstand moisture and will exclude air to a greater extent. may be cut from large webs of crape paper and crape paper does not present at the s'elvage edges loose fibers such as are present 7 in textile bandages cut from a large textile web. Crape paper, while surprisingly well adapted for use in bandages, lacks textile strength sufliclent to enable it to be wound with the requisite degree of tightness. This I compensate for by the employment of rows of stitches, or more accurately, lines of sewing machine stitches'2, which impart to the crape paper an unexpected degree of strength. Since in the crape paper high places on one side are generally opposite low places on the other side, it is not unlikely that under tension the paper slightly elon'gates without tearing and so refers the strain to-the rows of stitches. or more accurately to the thread constituting the rows of stitches which is strong enough to resist the pull, leaving the paper intact. There may bemore than one row of stitching as indicated at 2 in Figs. 2 and 3, in which case there are three rows or there mav be two rows of stitches as indicated at 2,in 1. The number of rows of stitches is therefore not material. In Figs. 1 and 2, one ply of crape paper is shown but more than one ply may be used and this is indicated diagrammatically in Fig. 3. in which the plies are shown as separated, whereas in fact they are in contact. Evidentlv the rows of stitching can be inexpensively applied and the strips of crape paper can be readily cut and folded into plies when desirable and the bandages can be conveniently rolled.

What I claim is:

A bandage for surgical and like purposes consisting of a strip of crape paper elongatable by flattening its crimps without rupturing its web. combined with lengthwise ranging stitching relatively non-elongatable and to which the stress is referred as the crimps flatten in bandaging, substantially as described.

. HENRY W. I STOKES.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the "Commissioner of Patents,

Washington, D. C. V

Bandages of. the invention, 

